


Felix means 'Happiness'.

by DoveHeart



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Brothers, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, No Game Spoilers, Tragedy of Duscur, awkward childhood friendships, only backstory spoilers, pre-game, working title may change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-04 16:23:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20474012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoveHeart/pseuds/DoveHeart
Summary: Felix is thirteen and his life is about to change, just not in the way he thinks it is.Sometimes the things that shape us happen where we can't see them.





	1. Chapter 1

“You have to put it back. He’s going to know you took it.”

“So? He can come and take it if he cares so much. It looks better on me anyway.”

The herb garden was black and white in winter, just soil and frost and dark woody stems. Every scrap of green had been harvested before the winter cold could kill it, and the servants’ quarters and corridors were hung with bunches of drying leaves that perfumed the air. It was more secret than the larger vegetable gardens and scrubby orchards, small and walled in to keep as much of the cold out as possible, and useless all through the winter, so nobody would stray in to see. Of all the Fraldarius castle grounds, this was the place Glenn was least likely to find them, at least before Felix had had the chance to enjoy his stolen - let’s say borrowed - goods.

“You can’t even get it on right,” said Sylvain, and reached out for the helmet. “Here, if you really have to do this, let me-”

“I can do it!” Felix dodged out of reach, slippery as an ermine.

“Look, even Glenn has a squire to help him with this stuff.”

“I don’t need a squire!” Felix tried again in vain to fit the helmet on his head. “And you’d be a terrible squire anyway.”

“It would be an honour to have me for a squire,” said Sylvain, lunging forward. “Squiring for _you_, however… Come on, this is painful to watch, give it here!”

“No!”

“Give it!”

“What is going on in here?”

Both Felix and Sylvain froze guiltily, but it was just Ingrid, alone by the stone walls spidered with their winter ivy, her hair bright against the grey and green. Felix could tell that she was folding her arms under all her furs, which meant she was deadly serious.

“Is that Glenn’s helmet?” she demanded, at the same time as Sylvain said, “I have nothing to do with this.”

“Liar,” muttered Felix.

“Did you steal that? He needs it! Give it back!”

“I just want to try it on. Then I’ll put it back where I found it, I promise.”

She glared at him, green eyes fierce as an ice burn, and sighed. “You’d better. Hurry up and try it on, then.”

Felix tugged at it again, and again it wouldn’t go.

Sylvain was sniggering behind his hand. When Felix became a knight like Glenn, his first duel to the death would be with Sylvain.

Ingrid sighed. “You are hopeless.”

Before Felix could even retort, she was behind him and pulling his hair. He whipped around, cheeks burning, and then the tie slipped undone, his hair fell loose and the helmet clanged down on his shoulders.

It was heavy and dark and hot in there, and though everything was muffled he could hear Sylvain barking with laughter.

“How do I look?” he asked bravely.

“Stupid,” said Ingrid.

“At least I don’t have hay in my hair!” His voice echoed too sharply inside the helmet, but if Glenn could wear this and like it, then Felix could too.

“I do not!” She hit him hard on the shoulder and he lashed out back, but she was already gone and he almost tipped himself over swiping at the empty air.

Sylvain held him up. “Here, this way.”

Felix felt himself turned around by the shoulders.

“Ready?”

“Sylvain!” screeched Ingrid.

Felix nodded clumsily, wobbling the helmet.

Sylvain let go and Felix charged right into the wall with a clang, bouncing off and blinking in the pitch black.

“Sylvain, what is wrong with you?” snapped Ingrid, but Sylvain was roaring in hysterics. “Felix, why are you such an idiot? It has a _visor_!”

“Hey.”

Ingrid broke off.

“You’d better not have dented that.”

Glenn wasn’t supposed to find them here. Felix was supposed to have sneaked back to the armoury and replaced it ready for Glenn to set off with the other Fraldarius knights tomorrow to join the royal procession on the road.

He rummaged frantically for excuses and found none. He could run, then, and Glenn wouldn’t know who it was under the helmet as long as Sylvain and Ingrid kept their mouths shut, and then later he could say he’d caught the culprit and brought the helmet back, but by then Glenn had lifted the helmet right off his head.

“I didn’t dent it, I promise!”

Glenn looked angry - Father-angry - for a couple of seconds, and then burst out laughing. “Of course you didn’t,” he said. “Battle axes can’t split this thing, I doubt you could even scratch it.”

“I’m sorry about all of this, Glenn,” said Ingrid, as if any of it had been her idea.

Glenn just smiled and gently pulled a wisp of hay from her hair, almost the same pale gold. Ingrid blushed prettily, because of course she didn’t mind when _he_ did it.

“Felix, you should be training,” said Glenn.

“Why?”

“Father said so. And if you want one of these for yourself one day-” he flicked the helmet and made it ring, “-you’ll listen to him.”

Felix went, though he was half worn-out already from running around in that helmet. If his father had asked, then that meant more than likely his father was waiting for him personally in the yard, and that meant training with the lance, which wasn’t his favourite so he’d have to try harder than usual. Glenn was already joking with Sylvain and talking with Ingrid, and Felix tried to tell himself he didn’t mind.

He wondered sometimes what it would be like to be in Glenn’s place, the heir to the house. He could be; he had a major Crest and Glenn didn’t, and some houses worked that way. Sylvain’s did, which was why he was the Gautier heir instead of his older brother. Sylvain never liked to talk about it, so Felix tried Glenn’s life on for size only in the privacy of his own mind. To be as good as Glenn, to be a knight, to know that one day he would own the castle and have to run it, meet all the other lords in the council chamber with Father and learn how it was all done. And Ingrid too, he thought of her, but it was strange enough that one day she would be his sister, so he never thought of her for long. Castles and fighting and duties to the crown were fine, he understood those and could imagine himself engaging with them. Words like ‘wife’ and ‘marriage’ were far outside the realm of his experience. They meant nothing to him, and he wasn’t sure he wanted them to mean anything. More than once Ingrid had promised that when she was a lady of Fraldarius she’d find him a good wife, and it had always sounded like a threat.

There was no sound coming from the yard, but if Father had sent for him then he’d be in there. Felix found himself walking slower, his own footsteps quieter, watching for a trap. Nothing moved.

The sound wasn’t quite a grunt, barely a hitch of breath, but Felix heard it and spun, in time to bat away the dummy throwing knife with his forearm.

A moment later he felt it, pain so sharp it brought tears to his eyes and bent him over. He held his breath and hissed through his teeth to keep from yelling, because if he yelled then he’d get something else thrown at him. He was already bruising. He could feel it, right on the bone. What a stupid thing to do, to knock a knife out of the air with his bare arm. That was what his father would say. And it didn’t even matter that it was only wood, because-

“If that had been a real knife, you’d only have one arm now,” said his father from the shadows by the wall. “A lesson learned. Next time you’ll come to train already in armour. Or learn to dodge. Won’t you?”

Felix nodded, biting the inside of his cheek to stifle his whimpering and blinking the tears from his eyes still.

“But good reflexes,” said his father, and Felix was so pleased that he almost forgot the pain.

*

The night was as clear as ice, the stars like frost. The castle was asleep: servants, Father, Ingrid in the guest bedroom. Only the men on the night watch were awake, posted at their gates far below, and Felix and Glenn, high up on the roof where the tiles were worn smooth and faded from years of climbing out of bedroom windows and watching the stars. They’d come out here as long as Felix could remember, to whisper things that could only be said up here where nobody came, things that could only exist in this night-time place. They’d carved their names in the tiles long ago, and scratched them out sometimes when they fought, but always at some point they’d be friends again and the names would be carved anew.

“I thought Ingrid would have gone home today,” said Felix, stretched out on the tiles with their perfectly comfortable slope.

“She’ll leave tomorrow,” said Glenn. “After I go.”

“Why?”

“She has to see me off first.”

Felix wrinkled his nose. “You aren’t even married yet.”

“We will be soon.”

“Not _that_ soon.”

“Sooner than you think. Then I’ll kick you out of the castle and you’ll have to work for Sylvain.”

“You can’t kick me out,” said Felix. “Father said I had good form today. He said I could beat you if I kept working hard.”

“You gonna keep working hard?”

“Obviously.”

“Good,” said Glenn. “You’ve got plenty of time. Let’s see if you can beat me when I get back.”

_Plenty of time?_ “How long are you going to be gone for?” asked Felix.

“Depends on the roads and the weather,” said Glenn. “If the snows hold off, maybe a month? Depends on how the talks go too, once we get there.”

“I didn’t know Duscur was so far away.”

“Everything’s slower when you travel with royalty,” said Glenn, so casually that Felix was jealous.

He glared up at the stars, burrowed in the bedding he’d dragged out of his room and over the roof.

“Hey.”

Felix burrowed deeper.

“Hey. Are you okay? You’re not going to miss me, are you?”

“Why would I _miss_ you?” He looked over at Glenn, just a pair of eyes over his fur blankets.

Glenn didn’t even look at him.

“Aren’t you cold?” Felix asked at last. Glenn hadn’t brought out any bedding at all. He was sitting right on the freezing tiles.

“Cold? This isn’t cold. _Sreng_ is cold. I heard it’s so cold you can’t even wear plate there.”

“Why?”

“The metal gets so cold that when you touch it you stick, and when you pull away…” He made a ripping noise. “You leave skin behind.”

“That’s horrible.”

“But true.”

“No it isn’t.”

“I’ve seen the scars,” said Glenn.

“No you haven’t.”

“Fine, don’t believe me,” said Glenn. “It’s still true.”

"Sylvain never said it was that cold, and Gautier borders Sreng."

"That's just the south of Sreng. I'm talking about the far north where Sylvain's never been."

That was the problem with Glenn these days. He was always right. He'd seen everything there was to see, and knew too much that Felix didn't. "Prove it," he said.

Glenn laughed. "How can I prove it?"

"We'll go to Sreng," said Felix. "And take plate armour with us."

"You can be the one to touch it then, because I like my fingers the way they are."

"If you're scared…"

"I'm smart, it's different. Not that you'd understand."

"Promise we'll go?"

"Promise. Once I'm back."

"And when you see Dimitri tomorrow, tell him about the sword we saw at the market, the one that merchant had with him, with the dragons carved on the blade."

"I'll tell him," said Glenn. "You know, you have to start calling him 'Your Highness'."

"No I don't." Felix yawned and shivered as the wind picked up. "He said I didn't have to."

"It's not up to him. Father calls the king 'Your Majesty', even though they're friends."

"Maybe the king likes it." Felix closed his eyes, a red crescent moon shadow floating inside his eyelids. "Anyway, if Dimitri's so powerful-"

"Felix, he's the crown prince."

"-then why can't he even decide what he wants to be called?"

"You're such an idiot, Felix."

"You just don't have an answer because I'm right." He rolled over in his blankets.

"Hey," said Glenn, "don't sleep out here. Come on."

Felix dimly heard the tiles creak under him, and Glenn's feet scrape across them, and then he was being nudged hard in the back, over and over until he relented and got up. It was freezing out here. He hadn't noticed under all the blankets.

"Time to turn in," said Glenn. "We're leaving early tomorrow, and I don't want to sleep through the march."

"Well, if you're _tired_." Felix bit back a yawn. It was so cold now. The moon was haloed with it, and even the stars seemed to be shivering. He wrapped himself up in as many layers as he could.

"Be careful," said Glenn. "Don't fall off and break your neck."

"How stupid do you think I am?" retorted Felix, and made his way back to his own room before Glenn could tell him.


	2. Chapter 2

Felix couldn’t tell which of the armoured Fraldarius knights was Glenn that morning. They all stood in formation, identical, shining in the icy sunlight. He stood by his father at the gate, in the place where Glenn usually stood. He’d tried to leave a Glenn-sized gap, uneasy and superstitious, but his father had nodded him closer. It felt wrong. He wondered what Glenn thought of him standing here.

Ingrid was on his other side. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Did she really need to be here? She didn’t live here. She wasn’t married to Glenn. She went months without seeing Glenn all the time - the Galatea lands were to the south-east, a week's ride away from here. It didn’t matter so much to her that he was going to be gone now, did it?

But it did seem to matter. She reached out and took Felix’s hand, and he, surprised, let her. He sneaked a look at her and saw her eyes were filled with tears.

“He won’t be gone for long,” he whispered, but she didn’t look at him, just squeezed his hand.

She stared at the Fraldarius soldiers until the orders were barked, and they saluted Lord Fraldarius, and turned in a silver wave to march down the road.

She was still watching them when his father relaxed and sighed. “Time for breakfast, I think,” he said. “Ingrid, I’ll send for you when Count Galatea arrives. Felix, I’ll see you in the yard later.”

His father didn’t look like he minded Glenn’s going. He looked pleased enough with himself. Probably remembering all the adventures he’d had with King Lambert before he was the king, and Felix knew he’d be in for a load of those old stories for the rest of the week at least, if not until Glenn came home again.

*

Ingrid was in the stables, grooming her horse. She gave Felix a guarded look as he entered, as though she'd guessed how confused he was by the strength of her grip on his hand as Glenn left. Felix was a little embarrassed. He just hadn't realised that she liked him so much, that was all.

"It's quiet now, isn't it?" he said, a tentative peace offering.

Ingrid nodded and turned back to her horse.

"He told me he wouldn't be away for long. Just a month if the weather holds."

"I don't think it will hold," said Ingrid glumly. "I think it's going to snow today."

It was true that outside the clouds were dark and low, the sunlight smothered. "That's here, though. The army will outrun it, easily."

"I don't think that's how it works." But she was smiling a little now.

“That’s definitely how it works. If we can keep the snow here with us, then the roads will stay clear.”

“You’re such an idiot.” She rubbed the bristles of the brushes against each other, sending down a little cloud of horsehair and dust. “Do you want to go out riding?”

Felix looked out at the glowering sky again. “You said it would snow.”

“We won’t go far. And we’ll come back if the weather turns. I just… need to do something.”

He eyed up the horses and they stared right back at him out of their big, dark eyes, like they were waiting for him to answer. “Look, I don’t ride as well as you…”

“All the more reason to practise,” said Ingrid. “If you want to be a knight someday then you’ll have to ride. Come on. Please?”

“You don’t want to tire your horse out before you have to set off home,” said Felix, but something about the look on her face made him add, “You can borrow mine if you want, and I’ll ride Glenn’s.”

Glenn’s horse was too big for him really, but Felix didn’t say anything. He wasn’t the strongest rider anyway, so he just gritted his teeth as they rode over the fells that surrounded the castle. The horse would need exercising anyway, he thought. It should be grateful to him, really.

The wind came in gusts, so cold that Felix couldn’t tell if it was carrying tiny ice crystals already. Ingrid didn’t seem to mind it, riding ahead with her hair blowing in a stream behind her. Felix was content to follow her, his legs aching already on the too-wide flanks of Glenn’s horse. Above them the clouds blew by, marbled all the shades of grey and rain.

Ingrid led them to a narrow dale where the wind was mostly kept out by the rocky sides, and the castle was still just about visible over the top. Felix was immensely relieved to see her dismount and gladly followed suit. They let the horses graze.

Eventually Felix couldn’t bear the silence anymore. “You’re really going to marry him, aren’t you?”

Ingrid sat on a boulder. “Have you only just realised?”

“It didn’t feel real before. Now it does.”

Ingrid smiled faintly. “I know what you mean.”

“Why, have _you_ only just realised?” He stretched his legs, grimacing. Riding Glenn’s horse was worse than training.

“No. Well. I feel like I didn’t _know_ before, and now I do.”

Felix prodded his sore muscles.

“Try massaging them,” said Ingrid. “That should help.”

“Thanks.”

She sat on her boulder, legs drawn up, watching him from a distance where once, not so long ago, she might have got annoyed at how he was doing it wrong and started manhandling him to show him how to do it right.

“How do you ride so much?” he asked. “You must have legs like iron.”

“Practice,” said Ingrid. “And riding a horse that’s the right size. That helps too.”

“He’s not too big,” retorted Felix, which was such a barefaced lie that even he was embarrassed.

Ingrid grinned. “Thank you for lending me your horse. It was very chivalrous of you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“And thank you for coming out with me.”

Felix grunted. His legs were still stiff, and Glenn’s shaggy black horse was pulling up the tough grass as though he wasn’t even sorry. "I asked if I could ride with them until they met up with the royal family," he said. "But Father wouldn't let me."

"Why not?" asked Ingrid.

Felix shrugged. His father had said it wasn't a summer visit they were going for, that Glenn was undertaking a serious and noble duty. He didn't want to say any of this to Ingrid though. It sounded too much like his father had thought Felix would be an annoying distraction.

"It would have been nice to go with them for a little while," said Ingrid wistfully. "Just to know how it feels to be a proper knight."

"I wouldn't have gone all the way to Duscur," muttered Felix. "I just haven't seen Dimitri in months, that's all."

"One day we'll be able to go too, though, won't we?"

"Of course."

"We'll just have to wait."

Felix glared up at the sky and dared it to rain. "I hate waiting."

A pair of hunting hawks circled over the dale, hanging in the wind like kites for whole seconds before moving on, calling to each other in high, piercing voices.

"I feel like my whole life is about waiting right now," said Ingrid, watching the hawks get smaller in the sky.

Felix leaned back on a boulder. "You really want to marry him, don't you?"

Ingrid went a ferocious shade of red. "I can't talk about this with you!"

"Why not?"

"He's your _brother_."

"Exactly," said Felix. "He's my brother. Which means it's my business."

"That's _not_ what it means. At all."

“Then what does it mean?” he asked, but Ingrid was saved from having to answer him by the first flakes of snow drifting down the dale, settling in their clothes and hair, ornamenting the manes and tails of their horses like short-lived diamonds.

*

The days passed and drew out into weeks. Ingrid had long since gone home, and Sylvain was busy being the heir to Gautier. The castle was almost emptied of soldiers - Father had kept back just enough to cover the barest castle guard, and anyone not on guard was sleeping in the barracks or wolfing down their meals in the hall before or after their shift, so Felix had to train by himself. At first it had been nice to know he'd always have his pick of weapons, but soon he grew tired of himself as a sparring partner. He always knew what he was going to do.

He asked once over dinner why his father had sent so many soldiers to Duscur.

"Why didn't the other houses send more instead of making us do all the work?"

His father looked up from his wine. "Are you questioning my decision?"

Wrong thing to say. "No, I'm questioning theirs."

"It's an honour to guard His Majesty," said his father. "That reflects on our house."

"I just don't know why everyone had to go," said Felix quietly, aware that he was just getting himself in more trouble. "Glenn didn't need to go."

"Felix, I despair of you." But he didn't sound angry. Just tired. "As I couldn't go myself, Glenn was sent in my place. And before you ask, no, you're not old enough yet, and I’ll tell you when you are."

It was still a strange decision to him, to pledge quite so many men and women to some boring diplomatic mission, but he wasn't going to get any answers.

_I bet he'd tell Glenn why,_ he thought rebelliously, but held his tongue. He didn't ask again.


	3. Chapter 3

Duscur was an empty country. There were no signs, no borderlines drawn on the ground, but Glenn could tell when they'd crossed over. Officially this was Kleiman house territory, but just by the feel of it he knew it wasn't under anyone's control. This was Duscur.

The ground was rocky and dry, untouched by the blizzards that had slowed their way here. The royal carriages were being driven at a painfully slow pace even so, to spare the horses from tripping and the axles from breaking. The roads were narrow and badly-maintained, where there were roads.

Still, at least they were here now. A few more days and some luck, and they'd meet the Duscur contingent, and the King could go off and sequester himself in a tent for hours and Glenn could finally rest his feet.

They set up camp wherever they landed at the end of the day, now, rather than making for towns and villages. It wasn't just that there weren't many, but the people were unfriendly in Duscur. Not that any word had been said or punch thrown or weapon drawn - Glenn almost wished a fight _had_ started, just to break the tension. No, it was just looks, tones of voice, silences. Sleeping in a tent in the barren wilderness was better than braving that, and though Glenn hadn't said a word, he'd been glad when the captain of the guard had persuaded the King not to seek shelter with the people while they were in Duscur, diplomatic mission or not.

_Just a few more days_, he thought.

Stableboys rubbed the horses down, steaming after another day of pulling the heavy royal carriages, and other soldiers and knights milled around building cookfires and setting up tents.

They were a welcome sight to Glenn and the other knights, of Fraldarius, Charon and Gautier, who were returning from the nearest settlement with a store of horseshoe nails and horseshoes, wheel spokes and mended belt buckles, chestplates with the dents hammered out. It was the first place they'd passed in days with a blacksmith's forge and everyone had something they wanted fixing or sharpening. Glenn had been among those who'd drawn the short straw to go and run the errand itself.

They had paid fairly, even offered more, but the blacksmith had accepted not an extra penny, nor been a whit friendlier in return.

"What even was that place?" asked one of the Gautier knights. "Did it have a name?"

"I don't know, what does the map say?" Glenn asked back.

"What map?" retorted the Gautier knight.

Glenn grinned. "Middle of nowhere it is, then."

"What kind of a people doesn't even name their towns?"

"Duscur people," said one of the Charon men.

Someone snorted under the rhythmic clank of metal. "Ha. People."

"Shut up," said someone else. "Do you even know why we're here?"

"To protect His Majesty," said Glenn. "That's the only reason we're here. The politics is other people's job."

Not all of them agreed with him, but they were all too tired to argue after the trek into the village laden down with sacks of broken metal.

"You know, you can say what you want about Duscur people, but they can work metal." The Charon knight shook his head. "The speed of that smith…"

"And did you see the kid working the bellows?"

"Kid?" Glenn laughed. "That was a bullock they dressed in clothes and brought into the house."

That got a few weary laughs, enough to see them back to the rest of the convoy. The metal clanked in its sacks and the armour clanked on their shoulders. Some small, strange animal skittered away from their feet when someone kicked a stone. Glenn's face was almost numb with cold but in his armour he was sweating. Not far now, though it was hard to judge distance in this flat land.

"What's that over there?" asked the Charon knight.

"What's what?" replied Glenn, irritated, and by then it was already too late.

*

Felix tied on his armour even though he was only training alone. If his father, restless lately, should prowl and pace somewhere in sight of him, behind a window or through a hidden archway, and saw him training without it, he'd be in for it. He chose the lightest padding, the barest begrudging nod to his father's rules.

The racks of training weapons lay full before him, waiting; splayed displays of lances and staves, neat rows of training swords in racks arranged by length, all reflecting woody sheens of light like cut jewels where they'd been battered against each other. In another rack gleamed polished, dull-edged metal blades, curved and straight, serrated and smooth. Buckets and tubs of arrows and boxes of feathers were stacked up against the wall, unstrung longbows and shortbows stretched in wrong shapes hung carefully beside their strings. This corner always smelt of different woods and waxes and oils, familiar and reassuring. Something constant, that Felix knew he could find no matter where he went throughout the Kingdom. House Galatea, poor as it was, had a training ground, and House Gautier, lazy as Sylvain was about using it. The great castle in Fhirdiad had several, and one day he promised himself he'd swing every exotic weapon they had there.

He knew the feel of everything here already, of course, the way every hilt felt in his hand, the balance of every blade.

He lingered over the racks a little longer, not sure where he wanted to start. Sword felt predictable, archery too much effort. He stood in front of the staves, hesitated, and reached out for Glenn's, painted with faded rings of Faerghus blue.

*

The camp was burning, the smoke darker than the clouds overhead.

"The carriages!" shouted someone, and Glenn dropped his sack and drew his sword, running to camp with renewed, frenzied energy. He was dimly aware of the others around him, fading in and out of view as they plunged into the smoke.

Someone screamed.

A body lurched into him and he almost went over, but Glenn kept his feet.

The carriages were destroyed. Splinters of burning wood and shreds of twisted metal, as though they'd burst from within. "Your Majesties!" he bellowed, and coughed out smoke. "Your Majesties, where are you? Can you hear me?"

He could barely see but he could hear fine; the sounds of fighting and clashing swords, lances making the air thrum, the human sounds of fighting.

"Your Majesties!"

Perhaps he shouldn't be shouting. Perhaps it would only draw attention to them, give their attackers something to aim at.

One of the horses lay splayed and opened on the ground, and all Glenn could smell was roasting meat. Flashes and shadows in the smoke, fire or magic or light on armour, he couldn't tell.

"Glenn?"

The voice was young, high-pitched with terror. Prince Dimitri came stumbling out of who knew where, eyes wide and wild.

*

Felix took his stance, Glenn's favourite staff held loosely in his hands. A snow finch called from somewhere unseen as he breathed his way to the right place in his mind, and it echoed around the empty yard.

_Mountain gale_, he thought, and began - one opponent, near, reaching for his weapon. Felix stepped neatly out of the way, as lightly as a breath of wind, and hit right where his opponent's nose would be, letting the staff move almost of its own free will.

Too free - it leapt from his hands and bounced across the yard with an inelegant clatter, and Felix cursed and hoped it wasn't too obviously battered or Glenn would kill him when he got back. He sighed, clenched his fists as though he could retroactively put his mistake right, and went to pick it up and try again.

*

Glenn shoved the prince bodily out of sight. "Stay behind me!"

The air crackled with magic, rippling superstitious fear down Glenn's spine, but the fireball hit somewhere else, close enough to feel a pleasant whoosh of warmth and nothing more.

There was nowhere to hide and nowhere to get the prince _to_. Everything was too near and too loud. Glenn was twitching his head from side to side as though he'd see something other than smoke. If they could get away from here and back to the village with the blacksmith's forge, somehow make it in one piece across the bare, barren land where they'd be obvious targets every step of the way…

Something flashed out of the smoke and knocked him to the ground. Glenn's body moved almost of its own accord, fuelled by fear, rolling and kicking. He rolled enough to free his sword arm and sword, and slashed wildly at his attacker, but his attacker was no longer there. Heart pounding, eyes stinging, he got back to his feet.

No one was screaming anymore.

The fires were roaring in his ears, closer and hotter than ever.

Prince Dimitri was back by his side, but Glenn couldn't make out what he was saying. "I said _behind me_!"

Another person took shape out of the gritty haze, and this time Glenn charged to deny them the advantage. There was a tearing of metal, which he heard, and a tearing of flesh, which he _felt_.

His sword clanged useless to the ground.

*

_Waterfall_, thought Felix, and breathed until he saw the two opponents as though they were really there.

He made them move when he was ready, and moved himself to meet them. Good posture. Good strike. Careless footwork. Don't show the enemy your back. Move from the hip. Elbows forward, keep him at bay, keep yourself guarded, don't give him the chance.

Layers and layers of commands and complaints cluttered every aspect of every movement. He was trying to do too many things at once. He made himself stop, push his hair back from his face, wipe the sweat from his eyes, and start again.

*

There was something in Glenn's throat, and he coughed it out, spat. It didn't help much. His attacker had vanished back into the chaos.

"Your Highness," he said, voice rough and thick, unrecognisable, "you have to hide now."

The prince must still be behind him. He didn't look to make sure. Didn't draw attention to him.

"Please hide. Go."

He was swaying on his feet.

"I'll hold… I'll…"

The fire roared to meet him.

*

Felix set the staff back in its rack, remaking the perfection of the full weapons store. He untied his armour and left it out to air, where he knew his father would see it and know he'd been working hard.

Other than that he left the yard as neat and tidy as if he'd never been there.

The snow finch still sang from its hidden perch, calling the winter storms closer.


	4. Chapter 4

Felix knew dimly that something had changed when his father stopped pacing the halls like a ghost, but he didn't think much of it. He was fletching arrows, hands full and mind empty. He liked taking care of the weapons stores but without anyone but him using them there was precious little to do. Arrows were the lowest of the low tasks, lacking the ritual of blade maintenance and hilt binding, the care of replacing all of the small pieces that could break and kill you by breaking, that must be respected as highly as a steel edge. Still, nobody had ever complained of having too many arrows, and he preferred to do something useful.

Barred hawk feathers for the barbed arrows, white ptarmigan feathers for the straight points, grey-shaded goose feathers for the endless stores of hardened-tipped target practice arrows.

Surrounded by fluff and loose vanes, splinters of wood and sharp white stubs of feather shafts, he wondered if he could get away with checking the bowstrings were all in good condition in their wrappings or if it would be a waste of time.

It would be a waste of time, of course, just busywork, but his fingers were cramping and he'd picked so many splinters out of his hands that he could have made more arrows out of them. He was almost glad to hear his father's voice.

"Felix."

He looked up.

"We've had news."

His father wasn't giving anything away, which meant it was bad. The lord of Fraldarius was notoriously free with his joy, unreadable in all else. The weather had been bad there, then, or the talks had come to nothing. And what would that mean? More talks? War?

Regardless, Felix found himself hoping for soured diplomacy, talks cut short and both sides withdrawing to consider their next moves. It would give him a chance to catch up with the world. The chance to be there next time.

"What is it? Are they coming home?"

"Not here. Come."

_It must be really bad_, thought Felix as he stuffed handfuls of feathers back in their boxes and shut them.

"Leave all that," said his father as he went to put the boxes away. That, more than anything, put him on guard.

It tugged at him, the disorder in the yard, the task half-done, as he followed the patient sway of his father's cloak into the castle. Maybe it was a test. Maybe he was supposed to refuse to come until everything was put away. "What happened?" he asked.

"Quiet."

Felix was quiet.

There was a fire burning in his father's office, his private one, not the one he met the village heads and noble stewards in. The one Felix wasn't meant to go in. Even now he hesitated before entering, even though there was nothing ominous or forbidden about it through the open doorway. There was the fire, a desk covered in papers, a pile of books from the library. A sword hung on the wall, and a few tapestries Felix had never seen before. It was close and warm after being outside, but not a frightening place in itself. Felix didn't trust it. There were rules, and they were all being broken.

"Close the door," said his father.

Maybe it was war.

His father sat down and Felix stood on the other side of the desk, because there were no more chairs.

"The King's convoy was attacked in Duscur," said his father. "Prince Dimitri-"

The breath caught in Felix's throat.

"-was the only survivor."

"Wait," said Felix.

"King Lambert, Lady Patricia, everyone else-"

His voice was a whisper. "Glenn…?"

His father nodded, still no trace of emotion on his face. "Everyone else was killed."

"How can you be so sure?" demanded Felix. "He could have escaped-"

"He didn't escape." His father spoke quietly, his words measured out. "Help arrived from House Kleiman and the King's army, but too late. It was a massacre."

"No. I won't believe it until I see him."

"His Highness the prince saw him."

"He might have been mistaken." Felix hadn't been able to recognise Glenn in full armour, in a line-up of knights. If he couldn't, how could Dimitri?

"Here's the letter," said his father, pushing the topmost piece of parchment over the desk. "Read it if you like. You have the right as my heir."

"I am not your heir!" He eyed up the parchment with its broken seal as though it night bite him. He wouldn't touch it. “That letter was sent days ago! Things might have changed!”

His father stood, then, and hammered his fist on the desk. “How many times will you make me say _my son is dead_?”

Felix met his gaze fury for fury. The fire crackled to itself.

“Go,” said his father at last.

“How could you believe a letter?” hissed Felix. “It’s just words on a page. You _know_ Glenn, you know he wouldn't-!”

“I said go!” thundered his father. “Compose yourself. You will inherit this House whether you want to or not, and you will _not_ dishonour it, not in this room, not in your own heart, nowhere.”

Felix slammed the door behind him and suddenly couldn’t catch his breath. He couldn’t take in enough air and leaned gasping against the door until he heard a sound from down the corridor. No one could find him here. He fled.

He slipped silently around corners until he’d got himself turned around in this place that was supposed to be his home, and only then did he lean his weight against the wall, his head light and his heart heavy, feeling as though he was going to break apart. He was breaking already.

_Not here. Not here. Not here._

And just when he couldn’t bear it anymore, it began to recede, and he let out a shaky breath, cold and empty. He pushed himself off the wall and started again.

It came over him in waves and he fought it off, again and again, until he was safe and locked away in his room, panting with the effort.

_Now_, he thought, and waited to feel, but nothing came.

*

They didn't send Glenn's body back.

Felix dreamt incessantly of him coming home in a thousand different ways. Sometimes he'd never gone at all and the last months were a dream, leaves still clinging to the trees. Sometimes he came back and laughed at Felix's surprise: "You thought I was dead? Come out to the yard, I'll show you how dead I am." Sometimes he came back bloodied and exhausted after a miraculous escape, telling gruesome stories of the slaughter of friends and comrades, but he himself alive.

Felix was denied even the bitter closure of seeing his body.

His father made him read that letter all right, fairly rubbed his nose in it. _Here. Understand._ Felix understood. The letter was short on details but Felix understood. Not found or not enough of him found, or not recognisable, or… He showed nothing on his face.

_If they couldn't find him then maybe…_

He couldn't even finish that thought. He had no more energy for hoping.

For the most part they avoided each other, he and his father, both wary and hurt and mistrustful. Felix caught his father watching him sometimes, and wondered what he was thinking. Did he know that Felix had ridden Glenn's horse, trained with his weapons, thought of his fiancée?

He never knew and was too proud to ask. He wasn't going to be the one to speak first, not to this stranger in black. The men of Fraldarius were all striking, dark-haired and pale-skinned, and his father had always dressed to his colouring's advantage. He looked like a different person in unrelenting black right down to the trim on his cloak.

The weather worsened, and soon Felix couldn't even seek out his solace outside, reduced to skulking around the castle and hoping not to see anyone.

He took his meals at odd hours and avoided them all until they sent Glenn's armour and sword back. The whole household was summoned to stand and wait outside in the rain for the carriage to arrive, while the message rider wolfed down cold pheasant and wine in the kitchen. Hospitality, and a plea for privacy too.

There they stood, a silent arrangement of people like statues, as if they were waiting for Glenn himself to return. Better to think of it that way. It was all right for Felix to stand here at his father's side if it was waiting for Glenn to come back and take that place.

He stole glances at his father for the first time in days, tried to see what difference this time had made to him, tried to ascertain the depths of his grief. Maybe he was more gaunt than before, though that might have been the harshness of his black clothes making him pale. Had he slept? Had he wept? The lord of Fraldarius kept his feelings too close for Felix to tell.

They were all soaked through by the time the carriage arrived, but Felix hardly noticed. He thought he'd prepared himself but something inside him still seemed to break when the knights climbed out and were not Glenn.

The armour was laid out in a box like a coffin, and his father's hand was hard on the small of his back, pushing him forward to meet the knights who carried it. It was as though he had done all this before. He knew what to do. He took one end and his father took the other. It was lighter than he thought it would be, and the armour inside scraped from one side to the other as they walked back to the castle.

Felix never saw the carriage leave. They went to the chapel and set down the box as gently as though it was a real coffin.

His father looked at him, saying nothing: _Are you ready?_ and Felix said nothing in return: _Yes._

They lifted off the lid together.

It wasn't armour in that box, not anymore. And the helmet that Felix had stolen, that couldn't be split by battle axes, was a cold molten ruin. Glenn's sword was there too, notched and oddly tarnished but mostly whole. Useless.

"He died like a true knight," said his father quietly.

Felix stared at him in horror, but his father wasn't looking.


	5. Chapter 5

The howling winds didn't prevent Count Galatea from arriving.

Felix hadn't even considered this, that they'd have to somehow pull themselves together to play host so soon, but as soon as Ingrid stepped from the carriage it hit him that this was inevitable. Her eyes were red and her cloak was sable, thin but well-cared for, and her hair was hidden under a veil that dulled its gold to sobriety.

His father took her hands and murmured something Felix couldn't hear, and she nodded. He heard her sniff.

He lowered his eyes when she greeted him. He was standing in Glenn's place. And she… who was she now? She'd told him that her whole life felt like waiting, and though the waiting had ended she was frozen in the same place, an 'almost' girl. Almost his sister, almost a widow. He couldn't meet her eyes.

*

They ate in silence. No attendants waiting by the walls to serve, no yawning dark gathered like cobwebs in the corners where the candlelight couldn't reach. Lord Fraldarius had insisted they eat in the small dining room tonight, where they usually ate when they were alone and they never ate when they were hosting. No servants, no ceremony, no formality. "I still count you my family," he said. "Especially now."

Felix knew he'd have to face Ingrid sometime, but his eyes slid over her every time he tried, his gaze slick with shame and unable to fix itself on her.

He'd have to face all of this eventually. He was the Fraldarius heir now, and heirs weren't given the time to be alone with themselves and examine their thoughts. He wasn't training now. This was battle, and there was no time.

"What news from Duscur?" asked his father, breaking the silence. "I'm afraid I'm rather behind on it all."

"You don't need to make excuses, Rodrigue," said Count Galatea. "No one will… Well. No news will be coming out of Duscur for a while. It's a ruin. Retribution was so swift that my own men barely made it in time to do their part."

"I see."

"So swift that the prince was still with them, you know. Wouldn't have been my choice, but perhaps they wanted to show him justice done."

"And what justice did they do?" asked Felix's father.

"Burned it. Every field, every village. Duscur is gone."

"And Kleiman?"

"Not happy about it, the rumours say-- half his lands put to the torch after all--but he's not so stupid as to say as much out loud."

"The King was murdered on his watch," said Felix's father.

"Exactly. If he feels he's being punished as well as the culprits…" Count Galatea shrugged.

"He should."

The tone of his voice made Felix look up stealthily from his meal, but as usual his father's face gave nothing away.

Lord Fraldarius took a sip of wine coolly. "If he can't control his own domain, then perhaps he doesn't need the responsibility."

"You're a hard man," said Count Galatea. "Duscur has always been difficult. Those people, they aren't like us. They don't understand our values. Kleiman may as well be trying to dress up wild dogs and make them abide by the law."

Felix's father had always been sympathetic to House Kleiman's burdens before. But that was before.

"King Lambert was murdered in his domain, by people he was responsible for. He should be grateful he gets to keep his head."

"Oh, no doubt he is."

_King Lambert was murdered_. Not, _My son was murdered_.__

_ __ _

Felix tried not to listen, but they kept on talking. _He died like a true knight_.

_ __ _

"...the prince isn't out of danger yet," Count Galatea was saying. "Awful. No one's quite sure what's happening, and they aren't letting anyone anywhere near him, so it's all rumours. I've heard all sorts from my own soldiers alone. Someone said that he's taken some Duscur slave or pet or something that he won't let out of his sight. Won't let anyone else near. Discomforting isn't the word."

_ __ _

"At this point we have bigger things to worry about. Let him do as he pleases for now.

_ __ _

"If it's even true. I can't see how it would be."

_ __ _

Felix had barely thought of Dimitri. And all the while he hadn't been thinking about him, the world had been turning. Duscur had burned. Dimitri was alone somewhere, in danger and in pain. Justice had been done, and he’d missed it. He felt inadequate, like he didn't have enough room for all the things and people he had to think about.

_ __ _

The whole meal passed like that, in long slow blank stretches, and then it was as if the plates of the evening came apart, showed a crack of the reality that was behind them, and it was hideous.

_ __ _

"Thank you again for being here," his father said when they were done. "My brother and his family arrive tomorrow, and then we'll… we'll lay him to rest."

_ __ _

_It’s not him_, thought Felix. _He’s not there_.

_ __ _

“I’m honoured to be here,” said Count Galatea. “I’d have been proud to have such a son.”

_ __ _

“A dead one?” The words slipped out. Felix couldn’t stop them. Everyone heard. He clenched his fists under the table, stared down at the tablecloth. It didn’t matter. Everyone had heard.

_ __ _

“Felix,” said his father warningly.

_ __ _

Count Galatea raised his hand. “Rodrigue, please, it’s fine. This is a difficult time...”

_ __ _

_He died like a true knight._

_ __ _

“Felix,” said his father. “Apologise.”

_ __ _

“For what?” he shot back. “For being the only person who understands? For being the only person who’s _sad_ that Glenn’s _dead_?”

_ __ _

“Felix.” And this time his father’s voice was a threat, a promise. “Don’t you dare…”

_ __ _

But Felix was already out of his chair, so keyed up he was shaking, ready to run. “What, don’t dare dishonour your house? Would it be better if I was dead too? Would that _honour_ you?”

_ __ _

“_Sit down_.”

_ __ _

Felix did not. “That’s why you sent so many soldiers,” he said. “You knew. You knew something was going to happen.”

_ __ _

“I didn’t know anything. No one knew.”

_ __ _

“Did you tell him?”

_ __ _

“He was prepared.”

_ __ _

"You talk about it like this was supposed to happen! Like he was supposed to die!"

_ __ _

"He was!" roared his father. "That’s the _job_, Felix, that’s what it _means_ to be a knight!"

_ __ _

He wasn’t ready. It was one thing to think privately that his father thought these things, and another to hear it confirmed.

_ __ _

Felix fled the room.

_ __ _

His father shouted after him but Felix knew he wouldn’t leave Count Galatea and Ingrid alone, so he just kept running, up stairs and around corners. Lord Fraldarius could insist that he didn’t mean it that way all he wanted; Felix had been paying attention all this time and knew exactly how he meant it.

_ __ _

_He died like a true knight._

_ __ _


	6. Chapter 6

Sylvain sat on a hay bale, watching Ingrid muck out the stables. It had been a while, and her arms were aching, but it was better than letting Sylvain get kicked again.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” he asked.

She shook her head. _Nothing, no reason._

“Are you annoyed at me? Really? After I was just trying to help?”

She stuck the pitchfork in the hard-packed earth, tines down, and leaned on it to look at him.

Sylvain pretended to shiver, and rubbed his bruises. “Oof, I think I prefer you annoyed.”

“I’m not annoyed,” she muttered, and got back to work.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you even here?” Her voice cracked. Every time she thought she was all cried out, she’d find herself doing something normal and remembering that nothing was normal anymore, and then the tears would come.

“You weren’t answering my letters.”

There was nothing to say. Nothing that could be written down, anyway. She shovelled another forkful of straw outside.

“Come on, Ingrid, don’t make me say it. You know why I’m here.”

She didn’t know anything anymore.

“I mean, can you imagine? The young lord, in his prime, glistening with the sweat of manual labour, noble of face but still humble enough not to turn up his nose at hard work…”

“You’re the worst.”

“Who knew a little bit of stableboy work would make me look so desirable?”

“To _who_?” Ingrid stared at him incredulously. “You spent most of it on your back!”

Sylvain grinned. “Yeah, I did.”

She wasn’t even sure what exactly he meant, but she knew it had to be bad because he looked so pleased with himself. She brandished the pitchfork at him. “You’re not at home anymore, Sylvain. You’d better behave.”

He lay back, arms behind his head, chest ostentatiously bared. “There she is.”

She was too tired for this. She lowered the pitchfork and got back to work, and wished he would just go back home. He’d surely get bored if she ignored him.

“So, listen…”

She went outside without even looking at him, piling more straw on the wagon to be taken out to the fields.

She jumped when he spoke again, right behind her. He’d followed her out. “I wanted to say I’m sorry I wasn’t there. When they… you know.”

There were the tears again. She let them fall. _You don’t have to apologise to me_, she wanted to say, but she wasn’t going to open her mouth when her voice would tremble and betray her. She poked and prodded at the straw heap, her shoulders tight with the effort.

“I didn’t think it was really my place to be there, but maybe… I dunno.”

She went to her horse, waiting patiently in the stableyard and stroked the mare's nose, tried to take calmness from those brown eyes.

"Now I feel like I should have been there."

"You wouldn't have enjoyed it," said Ingrid shortly.

"Is that an insult? I feel like that's meant to be an insult."

She shook her head, her voice gone again.

"It wasn't...good?" Sylvain's voice came from a safe distance away, cautious now, as though she were a wild horse he was approaching - though Sylvain had probably never approached a wild horse so astutely in his life.

She shook her head again. It hadn't been what she was expecting. She hadn't even known she'd had expectations until she was there and they were disappointed. Such a small gathering, so bare and stark. There were no flowers in Faerghus in winter.

And Felix...

Ingrid ran her hands through the horse's mane, untangling knots carefully as the horse twitched her head.

"At least you and Felix were there," said Sylvain.

“He couldn’t even look at me.”

“Ingrid…”

"As soon as we arrived home, my father asked me if I'd marry him," said Ingrid. Strange how she could speak of it so lightly. All she had to do was imagine that it was happening to someone else in a story she was reading. If it was a story then she knew that no matter how bad it got, at the end everything would work out.

"What?"

"Felix. My father asked if I'd marry him."

The resulting silence gave her a chance to compose herself.

"Oh," said Sylvain eventually. "Then I guess I should say-"

"I said no."

"-absolutely nothing."

She tried to laugh and ended up sobbing.

*

She’d been glad when they’d finally got home. She wasn’t used to travelling by carriage - her father usually let her have her way and ride when they needed to travel - and the constant movement of it, being thrown around with these walls around her to keep her from the outside world, tired her on one hand and made her feel vaguely queasy on the other. Her legs were unsteady and her heart was empty and she just wanted to sleep for a hundred years.

No one was waiting for them outside the gates. House Galatea didn’t employ many staff.

That meant, of course, that there would be no hundred-year sleep. Not yet. The horses needed rubbing down and the fires would need to be lit and everything unpacked and folded away. The mourning clothes Ingrid wore were her mother’s, and needed to be kept carefully. In case they were needed… No, she wouldn’t think of it that way. Say, ‘because waste was immoral’, and leave it at that. Because she should respect her mother’s belongings. Because sable was expensive.

It was that same evening when he asked.

He’d made her tea and let her sit, stunned and dull still, while he got the fires going and rummaged through the pantry, so she felt as though she could hardly crawl off and take her leave without a word. She’d stayed while he ate and forced herself to make an attempt, feeling the needling guilt of waste.  
Her father was eyeing her as well, so she tried to eat.

“I’ll cover the dish and finish it tomorrow,” she said at last. “I’m sorry, tonight I just can’t…”

“So young Felix is the Fraldarius heir now,” said her father. She didn’t recognise the casual tone of his voice yet. She’d come to.

“I’m sure he didn’t mean what he said,” she said, almost automatically. Even now she was picking up the pieces he left behind him. He hadn’t even been able to bring himself to look at her, and here she was, cleaning up his careless messes still.

_He lost his brother_, she told herself, a little reproachfully.

_But I lost my fiancé._

"What he…? Oh, that. I'd forgotten…"

How could he have forgotten? Felix's behaviour had overshadowed the whole visit. That was her first hint that he wanted something.

"Such things can be overlooked in these times, you know. Youthful indiscretions."

Ingrid's mind began to wander, the immediate worry of offence gone. She wasn't even a widow. What was she? There was no word for what she was, no rules. Everyone else got to have rules. Wear black for a month, visit the grave once a week for the first half a year, give flowers, do this and that depending on your relation to the dead man. But there were no words for Ingrid's relation to him. She wasn't sure what to do. She wasn't sure how long to do it for. What to feel, and when she was allowed to stop.

"You've done your duty by Glenn Fraldarius," said her father, as though he were listening to her thoughts.

_It's not done_, she thought. _Nothing is done._

"Perhaps there will never be a good time to speak of this…"

"What?" she asked faintly.

"But young Felix is the heir…"

"What is this?" she asked, more sharply.

Her father sighed. He looked more tired in the dim light, older. "I won't lie to you, Ingrid."

She had to bite her tongue to keep quiet. _What now? Isn't all of this enough already?_

"Our position isn't going to get any better."

"What does that have to do with anything?" she asked, though she was beginning to suspect. "We were talking about…" She trailed off. Let it not be true. Let him finish the sentence some other way.

"Things aren't going to get better for House Galatea, and though it'll be hard to manage without you, at least at first, I'm ready to do so. I've been ready for a while."

Since they'd accepted Glenn's proposal.

"And, forgive me, but Fraldarius still has an heir."

"What are you _saying_?" Her voice broke.

"And if the proposal still stands…"

She was talking over him now, saying, "Please don't ask it of me, please don't make me, don't say it, I can't I can't I can't I can't," hardly even words, just sounds to drown him out, sobbing, half-shrieking, until he put his arms around her and promised he wouldn't make her do it, they'd never speak of it again.

*

In the stableyard with Sylvain, Ingrid splashed her face with cold water from the horse trough, a habit that he thought was vile but didn't even remark on today.

"I'm sorry," he said, at a loss. "I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't know." For a moment there was only cold water running down her face, but before long her eyes were hot once more. At least this way nobody could tell. "Nobody knows."

"I'm just… I'm really sorry. I thought... You know. And you get along with him, so…"

"I get along with a lot of people I have no intention of marrying," she said.

"Ouch, Ingrid, right to my face."

She splashed water at him, half-playful and half in a real rage.

He shook his hair dry, and winced, holding his ribs. He had just been kicked by a horse, after all. She should be nicer to him, even if it had been his own fault.

She hated herself for noticing. She was always noticing, and having to soften her words and blunt her feelings because of it. She was no good at such things either, and then they made fun of her for being brusque. The worst bedside manner in all of Faerghus. It would be easier if she could be as oblivious as Sylvain and Felix, and just let herself be absorbed in her own hurt for a while.

But there were horses to muck out and food to buy and firewood to cut.

Sylvain was prodding at his ribs.

"Are you going to get that seen to?" she asked dryly, with as much sarcasm as she could muster.

Sylvain put his hands casually behind his head. "I don't know what you're talking about. I can hardly even feel it anymore."

"Go," she said firmly, and he went, muttering, "All right, all right," as though he hadn't needed her to give him permission.

"Wait," she said.

"Yeah?"

"Don't tell Felix." She lost the fight against her tears again. "It was just a stupid, insensitive idea of my father's. He doesn't need to know."

"I won't tell him," said Sylvain. "But honestly I don't think it’ll ever come up."


	7. Chapter 7

It was a relief, Felix told himself, up on the roof, holding the message tight against the wind. What would he have even done if she'd said yes?

He was getting good at sneaking around the castle. His father was expecting him to come around any day now. Felix could tell by the way he was going about his life as normal, keeping his usual hours, his usual routine. Saying, _You know where I am, when you're ready._

Felix did know where he was. It made it easier to avoid him.

He skulked around like a thief, taking his meals up on trays from the kitchen, padding the corridors on silent feet and sensitive to the slightest sound. As though it really was a battle and his father was the enemy. He’d written the letter in secret, and taken the wording from some mouldering family records he’d found in the library. It hadn't been hard to forge his father's signature and borrow his father's seal. Nor had it been hard to coax the letters out of the post rider's hands at dawn every morning with a promise that they'd get where they needed to go. The rider had twitched his eyebrows, probably thinking love letters or some such pointless thing. Felix let him.

He’d had to read Count Galatea's reply three times to see the answer, it was that cluttered up with politenesses.

He'd passed his father on the way to his room tonight, an unexpected encounter. Only a glimpse through open doorways, on either side of a hall, but just the sight of him twisted in Felix's gut like a knife.

He had wondered how he could cross this abyss, wider with every day that passed, but that sight had hardened his position. It wasn't an abyss now, it was a hawk-feathered arrow lodged deep in him, and if he pulled it out then there was no telling what would come rushing out after it. He would live with it.

On the roof, in their old spot, was the only place he felt he could breathe easy. A surprise at first. He'd thought he'd never be able to come here again. But it was the only place where nobody would find him. The only place where Glenn's name was written for his eyes alone.

He settled in his furs with his view of the silvered clouds, the hazy moon. The night watch were playing dice; their voices carried in the cold, friendly echoes stripped of words and meaning.

Felix lifted his hand with the letter folded tight in it. "There," he said aloud. "I tried. Are you happy now?" Not that he believed Glenn was out there watching.

It was a relief that she had said no. He couldn't be Glenn now, no matter how hard he tried.

And why should he? He cupped his hands around his mouth, and yelled into the wind. "I'm going to stay up here all night, and if you don't like it, then come down here and tell me yourself!"

The guards on the ground heard him. Their voices fell quiet. Felix lay still. He knew they couldn't see him from there.

The wind tried to pull the message from his hand, tried to pull Felix from the roof in the direction of the fells where he'd ridden with Ingrid.

He gave it the letter. Opened his hands and let it be snatched away. He couldn't see where it had gone in the dark. Somewhere far away, he hoped. All the way to Duscur. Let it land on the ashes of all the other dead futures piled up out there.

He’d make his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Sort of irrelevant talk but I've been sending out short stories since the beginning of this year and it's been basically a relentless parade of rejection and sadness, and since I started posting this fic I've stopped dreading my email inbox for the first time in a long time, so honestly and truly, thank you for being here. You've genuinely made my life better.
> 
> Anyway, whether I managed to stick the landing here or not, only you know! I hope I didn't disappoint.

**Author's Note:**

> Long-time reader, first-time writer - hi!
> 
> I've tried to be as faithful as possible to information we're given in canon, but I've had to speculate a lot, especially around geography and worldbuilding and distances, so please forgive me. Details may change as I get further through the game and come across more details. Totally up for nerdy discussion about my choices!


End file.
